Meetings

Our meetings are held on the first Wednesday of each month (unless otherwise specified) at the Lake San Marcos Pavilion (1105 La Bonita Dr., San Marcos, CA 92078). Meetings feature culture classes to learn about growing orchids first hand, as well as monthly special guest speakers, who cover just about every topic imaginable on orchid culture, breeding, hybridizing, judging, conservation, travel and more.

Next general meeting: April 3, 2019 - Lake San Marcos Conference Center

The Palomar Orchid Society generally meets at 6:30 pm the FIRST WEDNESDAY of every month at the Lake San Marcos Conference Center (1035 La Bonita Drive, San Marcos, CA 92078). Traveling on State Route 78, take the Rancho Santa Fe exit and head South. The entrance to the Lake San Marcos Resort is about a mile South of the San Marcos Blvd. intersection. Traveling on I5 South from Oceanside and North Carlsbad, take the Palomar Airport exit and turn right onto Rancho Santa Fe. Traveling North on I5 from South Carlsbad and Encinitas, for example, take the La Costa Ave. exit and turn left onto Rancho Santa Fe. The entrance to the resort will be the first right after the fire station in San Marcos.

Inside the resort at the first "T" intersection, turn left on San Marino Drive. At the next 4-way STOP, turn right on La Bonita Drive. Proceed ahead for one block on La Bonita. The conference center will be on the left and there is plenty of parking

Our monthly meetings are a great way to share orchid growing experiences, learn about orchids from our members and expert speakers, and to meet and socialize with other orchid enthusiasts. Our members range in experience level from interested novice to commercial grower. Everyone is invited to attend and participate and guests are very much welcomed.

How the Meetings are Organized:

Culture ClassDuring culture class, a society member or the speaker of the month will present some basic culture techniques and answer any questions about how to grow orchids.

General Society BusinessA brief overview of the current and recent activities of the society will be presented by our president. This is also a great opportunity to volunteer for activities or committees.

Monthly SpeakerOur society strives to invite interesting and highly knowledgable speakers each month to present on orchid-related topics of a wide range.

Break for RefreshmentsThis is a great opportunity to socialize and to admire the orchids brought in for "show and tell" or available on the opportunity table.

Member Orchid "Show and Tell"Members bring in their orchids and briefly introduce the plants

Raffle for Orchids from the Plant TableHere is your chance to help raise funds for the society and win a potentially award-worthy plant for very little money. Plants are typically provided by local growers and are often in bloom.

Fred ClarkeIt is our distinct pleasure to welcome back one of our most favorite speakers, Fred Clarke. Fred will provide us with an update on his breeding efforts with Australian Dendrobiums in a talk title "Aussie Dendrobiums and Their Cultivation". Fred has been doing extensive work on improving the hybrids in this very interesting class of orchids. As several of you may know, Aussie Dends are very tough and hardy plants that do very well in our San Diego area. They are quite attractive orchids in that they are easy to grow, tolerant of heat and cold, have fragrant flowers, and re-bloom from the old bulbs!!! They thrive in frost-free areas and do well alongside Cattleyas under shade structures so they are a popular class for many of us to grow outside year round. Fred will review the species and latest developments in breeding and growing of this popular class of orchids. Moreover, he will cover the best practices for growing these remarkable plants. Fred also will be supplying this month’s opportunity table. Read more »

Two of our more experienced members, Ken Campbell and Alex Nadzan, will speak on growing orchids in a greenhouse and outdoors under shade cloth, respectively. They will share their conditions and tips for successful growing a variety of orchids under a climate controlled environment and outdoors. The presentation should be educational for both experienced and novice orchid growers alike. It is a timely topic to kick off the 2019 orchid growing season as your plants emerge from their winter resting period. The plant table this month is provided by Cal Orchid of Santa Barbara.

Ken Campbell and his pet pandaWhen Ken Campbell’s in-laws passed away about 20 years ago, Ken took over their modest orchid collection, which consisted primarily of cattleyas. Being an engineer at heart, and always willing to accept a new challenge, the first thing he decided he needed to do was to build a greenhouse... and as they say, the rest is history.

Over the years Ken’s appreciation of orchids has grown from not being able to even spell the word correctly (Ph. D. engineers are notoriously bad spellers), to being able to keep the plants alive (at least most of them), to actually getting some of them to bloom. Ken says he owes a special thanks to the many knowledgeable individuals that have over the years helped him achieve the level of success and enjoyment he finds in orchids today. Read more »

John OswaltWe are delighted to welcome John Oswalt, second VP of the SD County Orchid Society, who will speak on ‘Lessons Learned from Growing Cymbidium Orchids’. John’s talk will highlight his experiences in growing and repotting cymbidium orchids and provide useful tips to both new and experienced orchid growers. This is a very timely talk as winter and spring are the main times for cymbidium flowering and the ideal time to divide and repot them is shortly after their blooming period. This month’s plant table will be provided by Casa de las Orquideas.

John Oswalt began growing orchids over 40 years ago when he was in high school. After college, he put this hobby on hold due to a demanding career and corporate relocations. After John retired in 2012, he embraced his hobby again in a big way. John grew a collection of orchids in Atlantic Beach, Florida and then moved his collection to San Diego in 2016. John was a member of the Jacksonville Orchid Society and now serves as second Vice President of the San Diego County Orchid Society. John has two greenhouses that are temperature and humidity-controlled year-round. He also has a large outdoor shade area. John has a broad collection of orchids, but particularly enjoys growing Cattleya Alliance and Cymbidium orchids. He has had good success with his plants and has many practical lessons to share.

This month’s opportunity table will be provided by Casa de las Orquideas.

Brandon TamIt is our distinct pleasure to welcome back Brandon Tam as our first speaker of 2019. Brandon will talk to us on "Wild Orchids of Ecuador" which resulted from a trip he took in May, 2017 that included Harold Koopowitz and others on a trek in Ecuador led by Pepe Portilla (President of Ecuagenera), where the group saw many wild orchids and focused on the study of Selenipedium aequinoctiale. Brandon’s presentation is a multimedia talk that includes both photos and videos of his trip highlighting the diversity of orchids found in Ecuador as well as the interesting local cuisine and a visit to the expansive nurseries of Eucagenera, which supplies thousands of orchids to countries around the world. This is a very exciting and educational presentation not to be missed. Alex has seen the talk twice and it is, in his opinion, one of the best travel orchid talks he has seen over the years.

Brandon is passionate about his career as the Orchid Collection Specialist at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. He is a dedicated supporter of our orchid societies and has hosted several of our San Diego societies trips to the Huntington Library to view their extensive orchid collection. Read more »

We are delighted to have one of our own longtime members, Phyllis Prestia, speak at our November meeting. She will talk on ‘Wild Orchids of France’ and her educational presentation will highlight her trip through the woods, meadows, and spectacular gorges of France in search of the spectacular and often elusive native terrestrial orchids. Having trekked extensively in France over the last five years, Phyllis will present several genera through photos taken in situ of the habitats where they grow and are being conserved in the wild. Both species and natural hybrids will be included. The beauty of the landscapes and these gorgeous orchids will be memorable. The November plant table will be provided by one of our local orchid growers and Phyllis will be selling some of her own orchids at the break.

Phyllis S. Prestia is an orchid enthusiast, collector, and grower. Her latest passion is the native orchids of Europe. She has traveled extensively in France collecting photographs and sharing conservation efforts with local French orchid societies. She is also an avid supporter of the World Orchid Conferences. In conjunction with the WOC’s, she has trekked the rainforests of Madagascar and the islands of the Galapagos. Back home in California she grows these extraordinary orchids, which are presently getting ready to bloom. Read more »

Angelic NguyenWe are happy to welcome Angelic Nguyen to our society as our October speaker. Angelic’s topic will be ‘The Fascinating Orchids of Vietnam’ where she will provide us information on established and new species identified from Vietnam.

Angelic emigrated from Vietnam to the US in 1990 and has been growing orchids for over 20 years. She started her company, Orchid Design, in 1999 located in San Jose, CA and sells a variety of orchids at several orchid shows throughout California. Angelic grows several varieties of orchids including hybrids and species of cattleyas, phalanopsis, laelias, dendrobiums, oncidiums, paphs, phrags, lycastes, bulbophylums, and vandas. She also has several rare cymbidiums, including standard, pendulous and peloric, and has done some hybridizing of cymbidiums, laelias, and cattleyas. She will be providing the plant table this month.

Angelic is being cosponsored by our society and SDCOS. She will be speaking on ‘Fragrant Orchids’ at the SDCOS meeting on Tuesday evening in Balboa Park and POS members are welcome to attend her talk. Read more »

Tanya LamIt is a pleasure to welcome to our society for the first time Tanya Lam. Tanya hails from San Jose, CA, where she has been growing orchids since 1997. Tanya will be speaking on ‘ Helping your Orchids Thrive in Challenging Environments’. Since Tanya leads a very busy life juggling a full time job, frequently traveling for business, taking care of her family as well as her large orchid collection, she has had to develop successful conditions to grow her orchids to accommodate her life style and minimized the loss of plants during her travels.

After seeing orchids growing in their habitats in Thailand, Brazil, Ecuador and China, Tanya was determined to improve her growing conditions to overcome her environmental challenges. This required her to develop orchid mixes that would stay moist for 7-14 days and she also worked to also improve her greenhouse operations. Tanya’s current collection is now improving with her successes, and she continues to try growing many species that she avoided before. During her talk, Tanya will share everything she does to make her collection thrive in San Jose, including how she waters, heats, cools and fertilizes her orchids. She also will provide the plant table this month.

Tanya is being co-sponsored by POS and SDCOS so she will be speaking to SDCOS on Tuesday evening about ‘The Long Lasting and Frequently Blooming Orchid Species’. For those interested in attending her talk, please refer to the SDCOS website. Read more »

Peter LinWe are delighted to welcome back Peter Lin to our society. Peter is an excellent speaker who is quite knowledgeable on many classes of orchids, their growth and culture. Peter will speak on "Favorite Fragrant Orchids". Along with the beauty of the flowers, many orchids have an alluring fragrance that is hard to beat in the plant world. This fast paced PowerPoint presentation will highlight some of Peter's favorite orchids with truly fragrant flowers, and how to grow them.

Peter started growing orchids over 30 years ago, but then stopped due to school and starting a career. It wasn't until about 14 years ago that the orchid "bug" came back and he is now heavily involved once again. He is an accredited judge with the American Orchid Society and a hybridizer of mini-catts. He enjoys meeting with other orchid enthusiasts, and can often be found at various orchid shows and societies around the country. He also has hundreds of photos of his orchids that he maintains on Flickr.

Due to limited growing space, Peter likes to specialize in miniature orchids, both species and hybrids, for which he has received numerous AOS awards. His other interests in orchids include Dendrobiums, Angraecoids, and Neofinetias (now Vanda). He maintains a collection of a thousand or more orchids at his home in Southern California in 3 small greenhouses, as well as in an offsite greenhouse. Read more »